from Sam Heywood: > I to have read about such deleterious effects, but if you are viewing these attachments with Arachne on a pure DOS machine, which has no support for JavaScript or VBS, would there really be any danger in viewing this stuff online?
I guess Arachne would just get some blank pages or blank areas, or maybe crash. There was a VBS virus going around in newsgroup alt.folklore.herbs last summer, and one Windows user suffered serious loss of data on the hard drive, even took the computer to a shop for professional assistance clearing the virus and rescuing as much data as possible. For me, it just looked ugly with all the HTML quoted-printable junk. > I also get spams like that saying that they are coming to me as a result of my alledgedly having submitted a feedback form. All of these spams have something to do with promoting pornography. I know some heterosexual women who get the same kind of spams advertising porn sites that could not possibly offer anything of any interest to any heterosexual women. I know these women would never even think of visiting a porn site designed to appeal to heterosexual men. Some of the women who get these spams are old maids and Saint Frigidaire types who aren't interested in sex at all. They are absolutely shocked to find themselves the targets of such spams! I get spams like that too. Some but not all are pornographic. Spammer wants to suggest that the spam was solicited, therefore not spam. Spam tends to be not well-targeted. But it is comical when a man gets a spam for something to improve his breast size, or a woman gets a spam for something to improve her penis length, or a skinny person gets a spam relating to weight control. > Most all of the pirate software spams I get are from ISPs in Argentina, and almost all of the ads are written in the Spanish language. I do get a few similar spams in the English language from the same ISPs in Argentina. Maybe people can easily get away with openly pirating software in that country. This kind of activity makes the country look bad in the international community. Shame on them. I remember somebody on this list reported pirate Windows CDs being sold openly in Brazil for $4. > I will look up that outfit. I do not use pirated software and normally I wouldn't tell on those who do. I especially wouldn't want to do anything to help out MicroSoft, but now MicroSoft and I have a common enemy, the spammers. I wouldn't be at all interested in acquiring even a legitimate version of XP, even if MicroSoft offered to give me a copy for free. Even most Windows users I know have the same attitude about XP. It is often the case that people who normally would not cooperate with each other will get together to form partnerships to unite against a common enemy. The spammers should not be so stupid as to fail to realize this, but they are indeed just that stupid. > Sam Heywood Remember World War II, when the USA and USSR became allies because of the need to stop Hitler? When I receive a spam advertising pirate software, I'd be perfectly willing to turn the spammer in. Besides, how do you know they'd actually send the CDs? They could just take the money and disappear into the cyber ether.
